Despite Promise, School-Prayer Measure Appears Dead

Efforts by House Republicans to pass a "religious liberty" amendment
to the U.S. Constitution appeared to be dead last week.

The House Judiciary Committee held what staff members said would be
its last session to consider pending legislation, and competing
proposals to provide greater constitutional protection for religious
expression and school prayer were not on the agenda.

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, Speaker of the
House Newt Gingrich promised to hold a floor vote on a
religious-liberty amendment by the Fourth of July. Now, after another
Independence Day has come and gone and the 104th Congress is winding
down, it is doubtful there will be any House vote, observers say. The
Senate never seriously considered the issue.

The push for a religion amendment foundered not so much because of
fierce opposition from civil libertarians and liberal groups, but
because of disagreement among conservatives who harbored competing
goals for the legislation.

One faction, led by Rep. Ernest Jim Istook Jr., R-Okla., wanted an
amendment that would primarily guarantee public school students the
right to engage in group prayer at graduation ceremonies, athletic
contests, and other events.

The other, led initially by Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J.
Hyde, R-Ill., proposed an amendment with broader language on religious
expression that did not specifically mention school prayer.

The latter group's latest amendment, proposed in July by House
Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, would also bar the government from
denying religious groups "equal access to a benefit," which most
observers view as language designed to open school-voucher programs to
religious schools.

Promises To Keep

The disagreement among Republicans pushed the religion proposals to
the back burner for the first half of this year. In July, however, GOP
leaders revived the issue and said they would like to have a vote on
the House floor. Whatever the outcome, the vote would have served the
political purpose of putting all House members on record on the issue.
("School-Prayer-Bill Revival Tests
Republican Faithful," Aug. 7, 1996.)

By early this month, however, the competing sides could not come to
an agreement on a single approach, and the Hyde-Armey faction is
apparently willing to take its chances in the 105th Congress, which
will be seated in January.

Rep. Istook, however, called on the House leadership on Sept. 10 to
schedule a vote on his language before Congress recesses early next
month. "The promises given before and after the 1994 elections were
clear" that the House would vote on a prayer amendment, he said in a
letter to Reps. Gingrich and Armey.

Mr. Istook reminded the House leaders that his measure has 122
co-sponsors and the support of conservative groups such as Focus on the
Family, Concerned Women for America, and the American Family
Association.

'Nonessential' Opposition

But Mr. Istook managed to offend some other organizations on the
right by saying no "essential" conservative groups would oppose his
latest language.

The National Association of Evangelicals, a Carol Stream, Ill.-based
group representing as many as 27 million conservative Christians, said
in a letter to Mr. Gingrich that Mr. Istook's measure "runs roughshod
over the rights of conscience of religious minorities." The group
favors Mr. Armey's proposal.

The Annandale, Va.-based Christian Legal Society also favors the
Armey measure over the Istook proposal.

Steven McFarland, the director of the society's Center for Law and
Religious Freedom, said many conservative groups have a problem with a
clause in Rep. Istook's bill that would allow the government to
acknowledge the religious heritage of the nation.

"That would allow the government to favor the majority's religion in
the name of acknowledgment," he said.

One especially influential conservative group, the Christian
Coalition, has favored the Hyde-Armey language over Mr. Istook's. The
coalition, too, appears willing to table the issue.

"They didn't even mention this issue at the Christian Coalition
convention," said Daniel E. Katz, the legislative counsel of the
American Civil Liberties Union, a liberal group that opposes all
efforts to amend the Constitution's religion clauses.

Liberal groups and other opponents of the religion amendments are
elated to see conservative groups fighting among themselves over what
has at times been one of the top conservative public-policy
priorities.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a member of the House Judiciary
Committee recently quipped, "The right hand doesn't know what the
far-right hand is doing."

Vol. 16, Issue 04

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